House putting off health vote till end of September -- Shocker: White House would give up public option to get a bill -- But House floor version will still have it

The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder: “If you equate health care reform with a public option, then, well, health care reform is dead to you. There are a lot of angry liberals tonight. They are within their rights to feel aggrieved. ”

Good Monday morning. EXCLUSIVE -- THE ROAD AHEAD: House staff is working this week to combine the three committee bills on health reform into one bill for the floor vote. They started out as one bill, and staff estimates they’re still 80 to 85 percent the same. House leadership tells PULSE the floor vote will be put off for a few weeks after members return post-Labor Day. This is so everyone can process the town halls away from the chaos, and to get a better bead on where the Senate is headed. The new target is a House floor vote BY THE END OF SEPTEMBER. That’s not a hard deadline, but it’s going to be a pretty firm target because leadership wants to do it this year, and doesn’t want it to hang out there too long. (!)

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On the Senate side, look for leadership to try to enforce the Sept. 15 “deadline” that President Obama and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) set for the committee to come up with a deal. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), a member of the committee's Gang of Six negotiators, told Charlie Rose: “More important than any artificial deadline is getting this right.” But Democratic strategists want to move forward by that point, in part to preserve the reconciliation option. One POSSIBLE target for Senate action, not yet settled on, would be to schedule a break for Columbus Day (Oct. 12), which is not yet on the books, and back the vote up against that getaway day.

Then the conference committee will start to meld the two floor bills. So President Obama was probably being optimistic when he said Saturday at the town hall in Grand Junction, Colo.: “Even if everything goes perfectly and we pass legislation, let's say, in October, we're still going to have another three months of debate about this, then we're still going to have several years of implementation.”

TOP STORY -- WHITE HOUSE CONCEDES PUBLIC OPTION ISN’T ESSENTIAL -- POLITICO’s Carrie Budoff Brown: “President Barack Obama and his top aides are signaling that they’re prepared to drop a government insurance option from a final health-reform deal if that’s what’s needed to strike a compromise on Obama’s top legislative priority. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Sunday on ‘Fox News Sunday’ that the public option was ‘not the essential element’ of the overhaul. A day earlier, Obama downplayed the public option during a Colorado town hall meeting, saying it was ‘just one sliver’ of the debate. He even chided Democratic supporters and Republican critics for becoming ‘so fixated on this that they forget everything else’ …

“Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), one of six senators involved in bipartisan Finance Committee negotiations, all but declared the public option dead in the Senate. ‘Look, the fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for the public option,’ said Conrad, who has pushed an alternative proposal to create a network of consumer cooperatives, on ‘Fox News Sunday.’ ‘There never have been. So to continue to chase that rabbit, I think, is just a wasted effort.’

“A White House aide said in an e-mailed statement Sunday afternoon that the president is not backing away from the public plan. ‘Nothing has changed,’ said Linda Douglass, communications director for the White House Office of Health Reform. ‘The president has always said that what is essential is that health insurance reform must lower costs, ensure that there are affordable options for all Americans and it must increase choice and competition in the health insurance market. He believes the public option is the best way to achieve those goals.’

“But taken together, the remarks from Obama, Sebelius and Conrad suggest the White House is preparing supporters for a health care compromise that may well exclude the government option — which could help Obama win enough votes for a sweeping overhaul but touch off a nasty battle inside his own party between liberals and more moderate members who have resisted a bigger government role in health care.

“On CBS's ‘Face the Nation, White House’ press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked if the government option had to be included in the final bill. … ‘The president has thus far sided with the notion that that can best be done through a public option,’ Gibbs said. ‘Is that a hedge?’ asked host Harry Smith, referring to Gibbs's use of ‘thus far.’ ‘No, no, no,’ Gibbs responded. ‘What I am saying is the bottom line for the president is that we ought to have choice and competition in the insurance market.”

PULSE FACTS OF LIFE: A top House Democratic aide: “This is just for the Senate. There is no way it passes the House the first time around without a public option. The liberals (around 100+) won’t allow it. It if comes back from conference committee without public option and there is the right pitch that it is this or nothing, then it may pass the House.”

** A paid message from The Heritage Foundation: FixHealthCarePolicy.com gives you the resources you need to create policy solutions that would make individuals and families the key decision makers in their health care. **

HOW IT PLAYED:

--NBC’s Chuck Todd, to Lester Holt, on “Nightly News” from Arizona: “The White House has been hinting at this for weeks if not months. When Kent Conrad … came out with that co-op idea, I can tell you, insiders at the White House said: ‘Boy, this is going to gain a lot of traction.’ And those conservative Democrats -- this is not about getting a bipartisan bill out of the Senate, Lester. This is about getting folks like Ben Nelson in Nebraska; Joe Lieberman in Connecticut; Blanche Lincoln, Mark Pryor of Arkansas -- getting them on board. And a full-fledged public option was making them hesitant. Co-op will be the option that probably gets ‘em done. And that’s why the White House is allowing themselves wiggle room.”

--ABC’s Dan Harris, anchoring “World News”: “Today, the Obama administration was sending signals about a potentially major shift in the health-care fight. It looks like the White House may be ready to BACK DOWN on what had been one of the president’s top priorities.”

--N.Y. Times lead story, “‘Public Option’ In Health Plan May Be Dropped.”

--International Herald Tribune, top of col. 1.: “Obama looks set to make key shift on health care.”

SPEED READ --The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein, someone we always listen to on any topic: President Obama’s town-hall remarks in Montana were “most interesting for what's NOT in them. The word ‘cost’ never appears. Nor does ‘curve.’ The word ‘insurance’ appears 36 times … The cost argument wasn't working to marshal public support. But that wasn't its real failing. Its real failing was that it didn't work to marshal WASHINGTON support. That, after all, was the audience. ‘Bend the curve’ was a strategy with particular potency in the Beltway. People care about the deficit here, or at least pretend to. And the plan was to keep this in Washington: Pass the House and Senate bills by August, use the recess to reconcile the two pieces of legislation, and take a vote in September. That required a Washington-centric argument. It failed. Now the argument moves to the country, and it's going to sound a lot different. The opposition hasn't found purchase making arguments about cost. They've found resonance with government control and rationing and death. You don't win appealing to the wallet, you win by grabbing the gut. And the White House is following suit.”

AD WAR:

Health Care for America Now (HCAN) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) will launch a new $650,000 television ad campaign later this morning, targeting Republican leadership in the House and Senate and seven additional Republican members of Congress. A little bird tells PULSE: “The ad points out that while they have a guarantee of good health care as members of Congress, the Republicans oppose legislation that would lower costs for America’s families and business and stop insurance company abuses. At the same time, they have taken millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the health care industry. “

“Shoes” airs for five days nationally and in North Carolina and six Congressional districts represented by Republican House members who have voted or spoken out against health care reform. A national version of “Shoes” targets House Republican Leader John Boehner, House Republican Whip Eric Cantor, Senate Minority Leader Mitchell McConnell, and Senate Republican Whip John Kyl. State and district versions of the ad target Republican Senator Richard Burr (R-N.C) and Representatives Dave Camp (Mich.-04), Mark Kirk (Ill.-10), Patrick Tiberi (Ohio-12), Thaddeus McCotter (Mich.-11), Dave Reichert (Wash.-08), and John Boehner (Ohio-08). The Boehner ad is paid for by HCAN and HCAN Steering Committee member United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).

Authors:

About The Author

Mike Allen is the chief White House correspondent for POLITICO. He comes to us from Time magazine where he was their White House correspondent. Prior to that, Allen spent six years at The Washington Post, where he covered President Bush's first term, Capitol Hill, campaign finance, and the Bush, Gore and Bradley campaigns of 2000. Before turning to national politics, he covered schools and local governments in rural counties outside Fredericksburg, Va., for The Free Lance-Star, then wrote about Doug Wilder, Oliver North, Chuck Robb and the Bobbitts for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, where he nurtured police sources on overnight ride-alongs through housing projects. Allen also covered Mayor Giuliani, the Connecticut statehouse and the wacky rich of Greenwich for The New York Times. Before moving to The Times, he did stints in the Richmond and Alexandria bureaus of The Washington Post. Allen grew up in Orange County, Calif., and has a B.A. from Washington and Lee University, where he majored in politics and journalism.